Category: Uncategorized
Ten cultural factors that might impact your project at various phases in its lifecycle.
Sierra Leone is a small West African country, which is made up of approximately 7 million people. The population is however diverse with 90% being native African tribes and 10% being freed Jamaican slaves and Liberian refugees. The official language of Sierra Leone is English, but the use is limited to the literate minority. This will limit communication during fieldwork. It will be tedious to collect data from those who may have relevant information.
78% of the population is Muslim, but they coexist with Christians and traditionalists in the country with minimal to no religious friction. This will require a broad understanding of the religious beliefs to efficiently interact with those involved with Ukweli in Sierra Leone. The staple food is fufu (dough-like cassava) and rice. Pregnant women have certain dietary needs that are sometimes not met, resulting in malnutrition.
For Sierra Leoneans, a family consists of father, mother, and their children but extended family is extremely significant. Every decision is made with the interest of the whole family in mind. They depend on each other, and this might put strain on the salary of the head of the family. Considering the low income of most Sierra Leoneans, it forces Ukweli to lower its prices to make the test strips affordable, hence limiting its expansion geographically.
Sierra Leoneans are very social people, and their way of communication is free and involves a lot of teasing and personal space is a concept. This may come as a shock to those new to this kind of interaction. In Sierra Leone, early marriage and teenage pregnancies are common. About 13% of girls are married by their 15th birthday and 39% by the time they are 18 years old. Ukweli is trying through efficient screening of UTIs and Preeclampsia in an attempt to lower maternal mortality rates. Early pregnancies are a major contributor to maternal mortality rates.
A big family is considered good in Sierra Leone although it is sometimes not practical, contraceptives are therefore not common. This is the major cause of preventable teenage pregnancies and the huge families that put strain on the income of the breadwinner. The rapid population growth is also putting pressure on the environment and this has its implications on the health of expectant mothers and the population at large.
‘Children do not belong to one person.’ This is a common Sierra Leonean saying. Children are raised by a village and parents.Everyone else around wants the best for their children. This has a direct impact on Ukweli especially with getting Distribution managers. Hassan (current distribution manager)for example wanted a salary raise because he wanted a better life for his 10 children and his extended family.
Fetching water from the river and other chores done by village women together is how they bond. Information is passed around effectively through word of mouth in the villages Ukweli is trying to reach. This part of Sierra Leonean culture could be integrated into the marketing of Ukweli test strips, increasing the number of women screened for UTIs and Preeclampsia.
In Sierra Leone, the main form of transportation is a motorbike. To reach remote villages, the bikes are ideal for the old weather roads. This form of transportation is also convenient for short distances. That is why the distribution managers use them. Sometimes, PHUs make use of them when they are referring pregnant women to bigger hospitals for C-sections. This is not ideal in such situations.
Collectivism is a major practice to note in the Sierra Leonean culture. This may seem odd compared to the individualism of the Western culture. Decisions made are intended to benefit the whole community.
1.What SDGs does your project target? What might be reasonable indicators for those SDGs?
Sustainable development goals are known as the global goals that will lead to an achievement of overall sustainability in the world. There are 17 different goals, all of which have a general purpose of bettering the world. Our project is the Ukweli Test Strips in which we will be implementing a three-parameter urinalysis test strip into the healthcare system in Sierra Leone in order to lower the mortality rate of pregnant women. Our project targets the SDG of good health and wellbeing. We are focusing on the health of women in this country given that they necessarily do not have the resources to get the help they need to go through a safe pregnancy and/or live birth. Women have to endure a difficult journey to get tested for treatable and manageable problems, such as UTIs and preeclampsia. The journey to getting tested for both of these is difficult in that there will be a necessary journey to get tested, which can often be a waste of money and time they do not necessarily have. The trek requires a form of transportation to the clinic, money to pay for the screening, money to get back from the clinic, and the affordability to not work in order to take the time out to go get tested. All of these measures together make it very difficult for the women to follow through with getting the help they need.
Our project is trying to alleviate these issues by implementing a cheaper, more accessible way to get treated. Throughout the current case studies on the situation in Sierra Leone, one in seventeen women die during childbirth given that early intervention on UTIs and preeclampsia is not common. We will be distributing these three-parameter test strips to health clinics in districts so that the trek to get help will be significantly less inconvenient than how it currently is; hopefully, this will lead to women becoming aware of what is going on within their body and will get the treatment they need. These are reasonable indicators for the goal of aiding in good health and well-being in Sierra Leone as women will be able to take matters into their own hands and be able to get early intervention on their health issues to help ensure a safe pregnancy.
Lack of optometrists and access to spectacles in developing countries such as Kenya
The World Health Organization estimates that over one billion people who need eyeglasses do not have access to them. Most of these people live in developing countries like Kenya where there is barely one optometrist per one million people. Given the high poverty levels, access to eyeglasses is almost non-existent. Lack of proper eyeglasses severely impacts people and their livelihoods by decreasing their productivity at work, limiting, or eliminating new opportunities, affecting their quality of life, deteriorating their general health, and possibly leading to (preventable) blindness.
The solution I propose to combat this issue is to make Portable Eye Examination Kit (PEEK) or similar technology available to the majority in developing world countries. I remember reading about PEEK in The Standard Newspaper on a matatu ride in 2017. I had a passionate debate with a stranger about how they are scamming innocent Kenyans to download their app.’Wangepatia watu miwani.’ He was saying that PEEK’s founder should distribute eyeglasses instead. PEEK is a smartphone app that promised to deal with blindness in Kenya. They had just started their pilot program in Trans-Nzoia county in Kenya. In this county, 80% of the population has eye problems that could be avoided if detected earlier.
Our arguments were based on the facts stated on that one newspaper. After that debate on the Matatu (loud minibus), PEEK never came up until last week when I was looking up the potential courses of blindness in developing countries. Screening is a huge issue in low-income countries and middle-income countries. It won’t be sensible to distribute glasses in these countries if screening was never done. A proper diagnosis is needed to distribute spectacles otherwise there is no point in distributing them. That is why the issue of accurate and affordable diagnosis should be address.
PEEK’s technology simplifies the process of retinal examination/analysis. Compared to a traditional Ophthalmoscope, it saves time, it is more affordable and requires less effort to operate. Within their first year in Trans-Nzoia, PEEK was able to refer about 30% of school children they screened to Kitale County Hospital Eye Unit for treatment and eyeglasses.
There are many organizations that distribute eyeglasses for free or at an affordable price. These organizations include Our Children’s Vision, it is an organization that distributes eyeglasses through Africa for free or at an affordable price. The other organization that is leaving a great impression is Vision Spring, a social enterprise that distribute affordable spectacles in poor communities. They have scaled up their production of glasses since 2009 and it continues to do so.
The potential solution to this problem is increasing the availability of screening to these developing countries that is affordable, and more convenient than seeing an eye specialist who might not be available in the area. 30% to 72% of blindness is avoidable 9% to 58% is preventable if proper screening is made available.
Why I applied for Global Social Impact Fellowship?
I was going through my emails as usual, and I came across one from GSIF. It was about research opportunities for undergraduates at Lehigh. As a curious and over optimistic first year student, I immediately looked up the Mountaintop projects. My attention was captivated even more when I came across the Ukweli project. Ukweli is a Swahili word that means truth. Not only did the name capture my attention but the course behind it also did.
Having come from a country where maternal mortality rate is also peaking, I believed that it was a great idea for me to do the project. I had previously worked in a similar setting back home in Machakos Kenya, and it was the a rewarding experience for me. The thought of being able to make even the slightest difference in the life of a people is the truth that ignites passion for something.
When I mentioned to my academic advisor that I would be taking the course, he told me that it added no value to my intended major at Lehigh and that I should take another course that satisfies my prerequisites. However, I wanted to be apart of this course that I decided to take a winter class to replace the class I would have taken for the spring semester. I believe that being apart of Ukweli will help me practice my empathy, creativity, and critical thinking. These are some of the core values of a decent student. GSIF is an excellent example of what Lehigh University is about, hands-on learning, an opportunity I hope to utilised.
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress @ Lehigh. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!